


Hazy

by dabs_into_oblivion



Series: dungeons & dragons stuff [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, cw: drug use, world created by Patricia Wallinga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabs_into_oblivion/pseuds/dabs_into_oblivion
Summary: Loge in Cantonova.
Series: dungeons & dragons stuff [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853539





	Hazy

Her name is Isalt, Loge thinks. He isn't quite sure. She's a green tiefling and she's exactly the same height as him and she doesn't hate him. That's all his brain has the space for right now.

They're dancing. It's his night off, and even if it weren't, he'd be partying. That's all that keeps him going, now.

Dimly he registers her hand on his arm, tugging him outside. He follows.

They are on the roof. Loge doesn't know how they got there and he doesn't want to. The tiles swim beneath his feet so he lies down. Isalt shouts, distantly, and pulls him so he doesn't fall. Then she lies down next to him.

It takes him several minutes to register that she's asking him a question.

"Why do you wear that goat pendant?"

He closes his eyes. This is the shit part about potions. As soon as any feelings happen, he starts to crash.

"Listen, dude," she says, or maybe she's shouting again, Loge really can't tell, "I told you about my ex. You haven't told me anything about you. And I get the whole thing you've got going on, you want to forget, blah blah, but for fuck's sake, I let you meet my brother when he visited. No one from my life here has met him except you. So I feel like a little trust is in order, yeah?"

Here, of course, is Cantonova. Loge knows absolutely nothing about the city despite having lived in it for eight months. That's because he's been drunk or high or both the entire time.

He shakes his head, clearing it of this lucidity -- or is it lunacy? -- and rolls over to face Isalt.

"When I was," he begins, and hears the words A YOUNG BOY echoing from downstairs, and knows that My Clerical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade has started playing -- "when I was a kid, we had goats." Pause. Breathe. It's November and the air is crisp. Smells of -- nuts. "Goats. We had goats." He finds that he can't look at Isalt anymore, so he rolls again to face the sky. Lifts his chin to taste the scent on the breeze. "Frisky. Tha' was my friend. She -- she was more mother to me than my -- than Maeve."

Beside him, Isalt lets out a breath. She smells of wine and potions.

"They sold her." His throat seems to have become solid. "Was after I tried to come out to them. They were punishing me. Weren't giving me any food, or --" His voice dissolves into quiet sobs that shake the length of his body.

Isalt's hand finds his and squeezes.

After a time, she sits up. "Let's get tattoos."

He follows her. He thinks, if he could have had a sister, he would have wanted it to be her. He closes his eyes against the tears.

In the shop, Isalt speaks to the artist, pays them. "Matching," she tells Loge. "I'm getting your name, you're getting mine. We're family now."

He nods, once, jerkily, and asks the shopkeeper if they have anything strong to drink. He has blacked out by the time the needle hits the skin of his lower back.

Three months later he's on a ship back to the Aquatic Kingdoms. He didn't tell Isalt goodbye -- no use making her sad for no reason. No need to make her pretend that she'll miss him.

He's leaning on the mast when a seagull dives directly at him. Swearing, he ducks out of the way, and it's gone. He frowns, fingering the scratch on his collarbone, and then freezes as his fingers seek the goat pendant and find it missing.

He dives off the prow of the ship to the starboard side, surfacing in time to climb aboard at the stern. He shakes his hair (like a wet dog, he muses) and rummages in his things for his nail trimmers. He clips one fingernail into a point. He'll jab himself with this whenever he feels the urge to drug himself. He can't do that anymore.


End file.
